HR Analytics - The Next Big Thing in Workplace

Posted in Human Resources Articles, Total Reads: 2095
, Published on 11 November 2014

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Human resource analytics refers to application of analytic processes in the human resource department of an organization with the aim of improving employee performance and hence getting a better return. HR analytics not only deals with gathering of information and data on employee efficiency but also aims of providing insights into each process and make relevant decisions about improving these processes by using it.

All HR analytics does is the correlation of business data and people data, that helps establishing connections that are important in nature. The primary aspect of HR analytics is to show the impact of HR department, on the organization, conclusively. Not only this, HR analytics is also about establishment of a cause-and-effect relationship between the HR and business outcomes of a firm - and then creation of strategies based on the obtained information.

Image Courtesy: freedigitalphotos.net, suphakit73

The core functions of HR can be enhanced by application of processes in analytics. They are acquiring, optimizing, paying the workforce of the organization, along with developing it. The problems and issues surrounding the requirements can be digged upon and can be guided using the HR analytics. The managers will be guided by the analytical workflow, through which insights would be gained, at hand, from the information available, thus resulting into making relevant and appropriate decisions.

Success of Talent Analytics In HR:- The How’s and Why’s

According to the research of IBM, more than 90% of the data, in the present day world, has been created in the last couple of years alone. The clear implication of this is access to unprecedented amount of information is there to the companies. Right from intelligence to insights to latest trends to forecasting to future-casting. To KISS- Keep It Short and Simple- it is a huge gold-mine. The gold-mine of Big Data.

In the recent past, the survey on ‘Industry Trends in Human Resources Technology and Service Delivery Survey,’ was welcomed by the industry experts. The survey conducted by the Information Services Group III -1.1% (ISG), a leading advisory services and marketing intelligence company, is an impeccable study, leaders and talent managers being it’s targets in particular, which offers a clear spec of what companies expect to gain by investing in HR Tech

Unsurprisingly, the companies expect various benefits to realize from the investments done into the HR, but following are the primary one’s:

• Improved candidate and user experience

• Access to ongoing innovation along with best practices to support the business

• Speed of implementation in order to increase the value of technology to the organization.

It has to be noted that there’s a driving need for an improved interface, access and speed for the users. The new talent, ie the people for whom this technology is coming, is as fresh as air. This lot grew up with technology, is completely comfortable with it, and not only expects it to be available but also believes it to be available, as and when needed and required, and is easy to use and responsive to all the required situations, with social and mobile components.

According to the ISG study, a strategic alignment is wanted by the companies from the HR Tech with their business. One may view this as having flexibility in management of talent, recruiting and retention. It has to be noted that all the above mentioned things have increased importance because of the fact that in the near future, the Boomers are retiring, thus taking away with themselves the deep knowledge base and experience. As a result, the analytics end of the benefit spectrum is being looked by the companies. No marks for guessing that the above thing would be using the SaaS platform of cloud services.

Among the ‘other’ things, companies also want to put focus on the following things:

• Data security

• Integration with existing systems, both HR and general IT Data privacy

• Data privacy

• Customizability —to align with internal systems and processes.

Also, they’d like to have their HR technology to have the following aspects and features:

Cloud-based

According to the ISG report, the SaaS systems are implemented, or are on the verge of being implemented, by more than half of survey respondents. It’s easy-to-use nature, cost-effectiveness than the on-premise software, and the exciting innovation is what makes it stand out than the rest.

Mobile/social

That’s imperative. A good mobile user experience, right from well-designed mobile forms to ease of access to a secure interface, is required by any HCM tool.

The companies want to have a simple, intuitive user interface. Irrespective of the condition that whether the access to the whole system is from a mobile o a desktop, the solution should offer an interface that is single, unified and simple-to-use.

The companies also want to offer social collaboration tools (SCT’s). The SCT’s are the keys for the influx of millenials into the workplace, who are expected to be able to collaborate and corroborate via various channels. HR is no different. While it is kept in mind that it is challenging from an angle of security data protection angle, it’s also understood must.

Having discussed the above things, the experts feel that the final and the most important requirement of the study reported is Analytics and reporting. Reporting is needed by the management not only to get the knowledge if their investment is paying well-off or not but also to keep ahead of trends, within the workforce, through the robust analytics.

It has to be understood that the question is not only about the accessibility of Big Data, or for that matter the sophisticated metrics, such as the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but about the critical factors for success that measure progress made towards strategic goals. In order to realize the commitment of Big Data, the organizations are required to cut through the aberrations, and have access to the correct analytics that will transform them for the better.

One can interpret from the abovementioned source of this article, i.e. the ISG study, that more number of companies are going to recognize the benefits of integrated analytics, for the talent management as well as the workforce planning processes. Talent management not only creates a powerful, invaluable amalgam of data and metrics but it also identifies the hidden yet meaningful patterns within that data and metrics. Not only this, it also informs the decision makers the best possible way and method for whatever challenges and opportunities faced by an organization. This would help in placing of the right tactics and formulation of right strategies to move forward. Talent analytics will be taken, to synthesize the metrics and Big Data, for making the primary and key strategic management decisions, in field of HR. In other words, it’s not just the numbers, it’s how they’re crunched.

This article has been authored by Mitul Kathuria from FORE School of Management